Russell Raath on finding consulting clients on LinkedIn

Key ideas

• You don't need a big audience on LinkedIn, just relevance to the few people who might need you, at the moment their problem shows up.
• Start prospecting from an event that creates a new problem, such as a new leader, an acquisition or a succession, not from a list of job titles.
• Post when something relevant happens and you can explain what it means, not on a schedule.
• Buyers describe your problem in their own words long before they'd use your name for it, so search for their words.
• Do the research before you reach out: understanding the situation is what earns the conversation.
• Keep the first note humble and easy to answer: no implied urgency, no claim they need you, and no calendar link.

Russell Raath’s case is that a consultant doesn’t need a big LinkedIn audience, just relevance to the few people who might need them at the moment their problem shows up. He gives three ways to get there: watch for the events that come before demand for your work, write about live business news in a way that shows how you think, and learn the words buyers use before they’d ever name your problem. These are my notes on his 13-minute talk, with his research steps, the six questions he asks before contacting anyone, and how he writes the first note.

Why not just post more

The usual advice is to post more, post consistently and build an audience. Raath says he tried that through a 12-week program and found it disingenuous: participants were encouraged to boost each other’s posts, hire assistants to comment in their voice, and copy whatever seemed to perform. When a client is trusting you with a consequential problem, he says, manufactured engagement is a poor place to start.

What worked for him instead, as he tells it, was smaller and more deliberate. With about 3,000 followers, his LinkedIn activity led to sessions with a client’s board and management team, work he puts at close to $100,000.

Trigger prospecting

Most prospecting starts from a list of job titles and sends the same message to everyone on it, and those people are getting that message from plenty of others too. Raath starts from an event that has given someone a new problem, a new responsibility or a moment of vulnerability.

In his work the common trigger is a senior leader starting a new role. A new leader wants to reset the team, fix performance and set a new direction, and their reputation now rides on what happens next. That’s a legitimate reason to pay attention: the work you do may have just become relevant to them.

How he runs it:

1. List the five to ten events that tend to come before demand for your work. His examples: any acquisition for post-merger integration work, a leadership succession for family businesses, a restructuring, a new chief operating officer or a strategy shift for operating model work.
2. Watch for them. LinkedIn announcements, company posts, press releases, leadership changes, and what you hear in your own network.
3. Do the homework. He looks at the person, the organization, where the person came from, what the business has announced, and whether you share credible mutual connections. He uses LinkedIn for most of it, plus a CRM called Clarify for context and sometimes an email address. The question isn’t whether you can reach them but whether you understand the situation well enough to say something useful.
4. Reach out once, carefully. Sometimes that’s a private page for that one person, with a short video, a plain explanation of what he does and relevant proof from executives he’s worked with. He builds the page once and tailors it each time, and never sends it to a hundred people. Other times it’s a short, well-researched email that acknowledges the new role, shows he understands why the first stretch matters, and offers one useful question or observation.

He’s specific about the call to action. He never puts a Calendly link in corporate outreach, because asking a senior person for a conversation they didn’t request and then handing them the scheduling work reads as arrogant. His line is closer to: if a conversation would help, let me know and I’ll work with your assistant to find a time.

Don’t expect one reply per message. Some people never answer and some come back months later. If 50 carefully chosen messages get nothing meaningful, he’d look at the tone, the proof and the friction in the ask. Outreach goes wrong, he says, when it’s arrogant, implies the leader can’t succeed without you, makes claims you can’t back up, or follows up so often it becomes a nuisance.

Point of view visibility

Content marketing says post regularly. His question is different: when something relevant happens, can you help the right people understand what it means? You aren’t trying to become a LinkedIn personality. You’re trying to be a credible interpreter of business events in your area.

His recipe for one piece:

1. Start with something real. A company appoints a new operations leader, several large businesses announce simplification programs, an organization restructures around its customers.
2. Name the deeper challenge. His example: the hard part of a reorganization is rarely the new org chart. It’s getting clear on priorities, decision rights and what each leadership role now owns.
3. Give your view. For instance, that the first 90 days should go less on announcing the boxes and more on settling the few cross-functional decisions the old structure made hard.
4. Make it portable. End on something the reader can use beyond that company, such as: changing the boxes doesn’t change how the work gets done.

His own example is the article Simpler, Stronger, Faster, Fiercer, which took what the leaders of BP, HSBC and Disney had recently said publicly about simplification and asked what simplification actually demands of a leadership team, without pretending the three businesses were the same.

It works by accumulation, not a viral post. His story: one reader followed his work for a couple of months without reacting to anything, then asked a mutual connection whether he was as substantive as his writing suggested. Only after that check did she contact him, and that led to the board and management sessions. The goal isn’t to be famous on LinkedIn, he says, but to be recognizable to the small number of people who may one day need you.

Problem signal prospecting

Consultants describe their work in their own terms, and buyers don’t use those terms. He gives pairs:

So ask what a client would say, post, announce or hire for shortly before your work becomes useful. Write those phrases down, then search for them in company and executive posts, leadership announcements, job descriptions (which he calls a treasure trove), articles and comments executives share, earnings calls, and professional communities.

A phrase is a clue, not a diagnosis. “Our next phase of growth” says little on its own. The earnings call might show analysts asking where that growth will come from, recent hiring shows what the company is trying to build, and an interview with the chief executive can show whether the pressure is speed, cost, integration or something else.

He uses AI here with a firm boundary: to gather recent material and find sources, with citations. Then he reads the actual comments or watches the actual video himself, because he wants the executive’s exact words, not a summary of what they supposedly meant, and tone often carries what a transcript doesn’t.

Before contacting anyone, he asks six questions:

1. Is this a real strategic or organizational issue, or just corporate language?
2. Is this person close enough to the issue to sponsor the work?
3. Does the organization have the scale, urgency and budget for the problem to matter?
4. Do you understand the context well enough to offer a credible observation?
5. Is there a warm route into the conversation?
6. What could you say that would be useful even if they never become a client?

How this differs from big-firm account planning

The trigger tactic starts from an event likely to create the need. This one starts from public evidence that the problem already exists, often in the buyer’s own words. Both differ from how large consulting firms work, which Raath says he’s seen from the inside: a big firm picks an account, builds relationships across it for years, and waits for one of its many services to become relevant. An independent advisor usually does one or two things very well, so the order flips: find the problem, find its public signals, find the people living with it, and earn the conversation.

It takes more time than a search and a reusable template, but the aim is one or two high-trust conversations, not a thousand sales. Since the client is handing you part of the risk of a consequential problem, the research is part of what earns their trust.

How to try it

His summary works as a checklist:

• Write down the five to ten events that come before demand for your work, and watch for them.
• When one happens, research the person and the situation before you write anything.
• Send one useful question or observation, with an easy reply and no calendar link.
• When relevant news breaks, write what it means and end on a point that travels beyond that company.
• List the phrases buyers use shortly before they need you, and search for them.
• Run the six questions before contacting anyone.

Key terms

Trigger prospecting

Watching for the events that tend to come before demand for your work, and reaching out when one happens.

Point of view visibility

Writing about live business news to explain what it means, so the right people learn how you think.

Problem signal prospecting

Searching posts, job ads, earnings calls and interviews for the buyer's own words for the problem you solve.

Trust check

A prospect quietly asking someone you both know whether you're as good as your writing suggests.

Risk transfer

His description of consulting: the client hands part of the risk of a consequential problem to you.

Quotes from the talk